The twilight language explores hidden meanings and synchromystic connections via onomatology (study of names) and toponymy (study of place names). This blog further investigates "name games" and "number coincidences" found in news and history. Examinations are also found in my book The Copycat Effect (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004).

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Elm Street: The Mason Road of JFK/King-Kill/33

Dealey Plaza was the site of the first Masonic temple of Texas.

It also was the location of the killing of President John F. Kennedy.

First photo: Dealey Plaza in the aftermath of the assassination of President John F.Kennedy.

Second photo: Ike Altgens of the Associated Press' photo of Jacqueline Kennedy and Secret Service agent Clint Hill climbing onto the back of the limo, against the site today. November 22, 1963.

The street pictured is Elm Street - the Mason Road of the synchromystic seekers. I first visited the street, Dealey Plaza, and the Texas School Depository Building in 1974, a mere 11 years after the JFK assassination. I've been back several times, as have thousands of others.

Fifty years ago today, on November 19, 1963, The Dallas Times Herald detailed the exact route of the presidential motorcade. It showed the President would be going down Elm Street.

King-Kill/33: Masonic Symbolism in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy by James Shelby Downard was published (after years of making the rounds in rough copies and on tape) by Adam Parfrey, in the first edition of Apocalypse Culture. The essay theorizes the Freemasons were responsible for the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Part of the theorizing considers the special location of the "ritual killing" of the "King."

Downard, predating the notions of synchromystic thought, twilight language, and the name game, recorded his research, sometime before 1978:

My study of place names imbued with sorcerous significance necessarily includes lines of latitude and longitude and the divisions of degrees in geography and cartography (minutes and seconds).
Let us take as an example the "Mason Road" in Texas that connects to the "Mason No El Bar" and the Texas-New Mexico ("The Land of Enchantment") border. This connecting line is on the 32nd degree. The 32nd degree is the penultimate Masonic degree awarded. When this 32nd degree of latitude is traced west into the "Land of Enchantment" it becomes situated midway between Deming and Columbus, New Mexico. ~ James Shelby Downard

Most recall this passage as if Downard was talking about the 33rd degree of latitude. But you understand, with the Freemasonry theory, there is not much difference between 32nd and 33rd degrees.

Downard later states the significance of the 33rd latitude. It is all about the spot to Kill JFK:

Important "protective" strategy for Dealey Plaza was planned by the New Orleans CIA station whose headquarters were a Masonic temple building. Dallas, Texas is located ten miles north of the 33rd degree of latitude. The 33rd degree is the highest in Freemasonry and the founding lodge of the Scottish Rite in America was created in Charleston, South Carolina, exactly on the 33rd degree line. ~ James Shelby Downard

William Grimstad, writing even before it was published, was able to walk a wonderfully skeptical open-minded road, as he passed along the following summary of Downard's JFK insights in Weird America in 1978:

Would you believe John F. Kennedy as a ceremonial king-who-must-die? I'm afraid there is a certain body of opinion, undoubtedly the farthest-out brain wave of assassinology yet, that maintains the killing was pulled off, not by the Russians, the Cubans, the CIA, or the Mafia, but by alchemists.
As I understand the hypothesis, President Kennedy was for some reason chosen as The King (remember "Camelot," "Macbird" and all that?) after the fashion of James G. Frazer and Mary Renault whose "The King Must Die" he had been given to read before his death. This killing of the king in Dallas was related somehow to the touching off of the world's first atomic bomb at the Trinity Site in New Mexico 18 years earlier. Apparently the Bomb was the "destruction of primordial matter" stage of the grand alchemical working, but these conspiracy buffs aren't much more specific on details than were the early alchemists in their recipes. Anyway, Kennedy represented the next stage of the process - the "Death of the White King" - when he was immolated on a trinity site of his own. For, aren't Dealey Plaza and the ill-famed Triple Underpass on the bank of the old Trinity River? ~ William Grimstad

Grimstad, of course, is famed for his "Fayette Factor," which evolved directly from Downardian considerations. Grimstad, Michael Hoffman, and Adam Parfrey are among many responsible for keeping the King Kill conception alive, but the triad are the first three.

Popular cultural outlets, such as Robert Anton Wilson's works (e.g. Cosmic Trigger), the music of Marilyn Manson (e.g. King Kill 33), and the various books and movies about the numbers 23 and 33, have Downard's insights influencing a broader audience. My own works and books, including The Copycat Effect, show the readers various purple shades of Downard.

Developing from this, then, is what several writers have "discovered" as the significance of certain names or dates, or even factoids like Dealey Plaza being near the 33° north latitude and it being the first Masonic temple in Texas. Not too remarkably, most of the hints to these revelations track back to Downard.

Downard showed clearly the linkages between the mystical landscape and the 33° latitude. Intriguingly, awareness of the Fayette Factor seems more in play than any longterm knowledge of the 33° parallel or of 33 as a harmonic digit - except on anniversaries like on November 22, 2013. In general, it seems, more people follow the 23 "coincidences," in the numbers arena than they do "33." And, the 32nd degree is, after all, 23 reversed.

All kinds of associations have been made with the 33rd Parallel: pyramids, death rows, prisons, ufo crash sites, UFO sightings, the first nuclear explosion at the Trinity Atomic Bomb test site, the first site of the Scottish Rite in America, the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, and various assassination-assassination attempt locations (from Jesus to JFK & RFK, from Captain William Morgan to Gabrielle Giffords).

Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear device. This test was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, in the Jornada del Muerto ("single day's journey of the dead man") desert. Trinity, we have been reminded by Downard, took place on the 33rd Parallel.

Conspiracy sites often have statements like "close to 33° latitude are Kabul, Hollywood, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Dallas 33°, Baghdad 33° and Phoenix also 33°," mentioning their power node locations. Certainly, this is the legacy of Downard. JFK was killed next to the Trinity River, in front of the Triple Overpass, at Dealey Plaza, on 11.22. It does seem, sometimes, like it all happened in a movie.

Everyone who was alive in 1963 has their own personal experiences regarding November 22, 1963. Nowadays, people interact with this energy in the places they visit along the Mason Road. Sometimes, what happens and why is beyond understanding.

I was recently in West Hollywood (Latitude 34°05′24 ″ N), being filmed for the forthcoming feature length documentary 701, from the producer Tony Cataldo (in blue on left), codirectors Tracy Torme - in green - (Star Trek Next Generation, Contact, I am Legend, Carnivale, Intruders, Odyssey Five, Fire In The Sky, The True Story of Travis Walton, Sliders) James Fox - in blue, at right (I Know What I Saw), and Ines Romero - in the background, waving. The Zamora event will be one of the highlighted reenactments. Traveling along the "Mason Road" is often connected from one event to another.

Why do we travel down some yellow brick roads?

For example, while I was in West Hollywood, I kept having "coincidences" revolving around Mel Gibson. I have no idea why. By chance, his girlfriend (Nadia Lanfranconi, magazine cover) was my driver to and from the shoot. I got to meet and talked for sometime with a famed director (synchromystic fan favorite Zooey Deschanel's father Caleb) who had directed/photographed Gibson in various movies. In line for my flight back and in first class, there was Danny Glover, who had been with Gibson in several films.

Such events remind me of the lyrics from Route 66,

If you ever plan to motor west,
Travel my way, take the highway that is best.

As "Eugene" once observed here: "Route 66, starting in Chi-ka-go (energy-soul-lek lekha), terminates in Santa Monica (mother of Augustine, the codifier of 'the Empire never died'). Santa Monica is the on the 33rd parallel." (Actually, Santa Monica, near West Hollywood, is at 34°00'29N latitude.)

Ah, experiences do overlap, nevertheless.

Last year, an important theorist in this realm wrote, during his Mason Road journeys:

In his magnum opus, King Kill 33°: Masonic Symbolism in the Assassination of John F. Kennedy, [James Shelby] Downard used the example of the “Mason Road,” which runs through Texas, as demonstrating an alchemical formula linking significant place names to the 33rd latitude, which so happens to be the highest degree (33) of Freemasonry.
Located along the 33rd degree one will find Dealey Plaza, Roswell and Alamagordo, New Mexico, in addition to other significant historical sites where high tech black magick rituals have presumably occurred. It should also be noted that Freemasonry’s most influential branch, the Scottish Rite, was founded by grand master Albert Pike in Charleston, South Carolina, a city also on the 33rd degree latitude. Dealey Plaza, located near the Trinity River, was the site of the first Masonic temple in Dallas. Kennedy’s ill-fated motorcade was just about to the “Triple Underpass” when “three shoots” rang out, wounding Kennedy twice and Texas Governor John Connally once. Even the date, 11/22/63 contains symbolic numerological significance (11 + 22 = 33).
Downard’s central thesis posited that this grand Masonic conspiracy consists of three great alchemical works:
1) The creation and destruction of primordial matter
2) The Killing of the King, Kennedy
3) The Making Manifest of all that is unseen, the final act. (At present time unknown as to the exact nature of this “final act,” though some have speculated it will be nuclear.) ~ Adam Golightly

And...

Downard contended that the Illuminati arranged that the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, would be a 33rd degree Mason.
Downard’s King Kill 33° draws upon a larger conspiratorial canon, which surfaced in an audiocassette series produced by Downard protégé William Grimstad in the mid 1970’s entitled Sirius Rising. According to author Robert Anton Wilson, Grimstad’s Sirius Rising presented the theory that “the Illuminati were preparing Earth, in an occult manner, for extraterrestrial contact.” Part of this magickal preparation consisted of the founding of Cal Tech, the home of Parson’s JPL, on the 33rd degree latitude, near the SoCal town of La Canada. Located in the same vicinity is the fabled Devil’s Gate Dam, where Parsons conducted O.T.O. rituals. ~ Adam Golightly

Others - many others - have traveled this Mason Road along or near the 33rd latitude. To Fouke, Arkansas. To LaGrange, Georgia. To Lubbock, Texas. To Aurora, Texas.

Some are merely simple retellings, as with what Andrew Nicholson wrote over a year ago:

In 1963, US President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas close to the 33rd Parallel on 22 November (11/22). And then just after midnight on 6 June 1968, JFK’s younger brother, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, about 1,245 miles east along the 33rd parallel from where his brother was murdered. ~ Andrew Nicholson

Yes, scores have talked about "Mason Road," even if they haven't used that phrase. Some even realized that Elm Street is literally the place Downard was talking about, personified.

Elm Street is an important boundary, delineating the Main Street District of downtown Dallas, Texas, which is also bounded by Lamar Street, the US 75/I-45 (I-345) elevated highway and Commerce Street. Many of the grand historic buildings that had been neglected have been restored and adapted for new use. Pegasus Plaza is the district's urban plaza. It takes its name from Pegasus, the iconic sign atop the adjacent Magnolia Hotel, and the mythical flying horse. It is bounded by the Magnolia Hotel (formerly the Magnolia Petroleum Building, built in August 1922), Adolphus Tower (October 5, 1912, built by the founder of the Anheuser-Busch company, Adolphus Busch) and the Kirby Building (former the Busch Building, also built by Adolphus Busch, in 1913). Pegasus and Magnolia are two power names, of course, but some of these buildings appear to have significant beginnings.

As recent news items demonstrate, we are in a time of lions, lion lexilinks, and Route 66 linkages. It is also the 50th anniversary of the killing of the Lion King at a Trinity site. We should all pause to consider if any of this is worthy of further thought - or merely worth our thoughts for the tragedy that was the killing of Kennedy. Friday will be the high point of twilight language recalled.

Remember, November 22 is 11 + 22 = 33. And Elm Street is special and symbolic.

On Elm Street, the literal Mason Road of the JFK King-Kill story, does exist. And "elm" has a dark side. As one site notes:

When Elm gets ready, its strike will completely smash an enemy....

Elm is good for any magic workings, which are involving strength; and it also has the ability to add stability and grounding to a spell. Elm does well in dark practices, especially in spells that can bring irreversible material damage. It is known to dull the senses and cause depression or darkness, and is often used in dealing with shadows.

10 comments:

I don't for a moment believe the Masons killed Kennedy -- but it does suggest that certain archetypal patterns are always ready to leap out of the shadows and latch on to current events, reshaping them into ancient and familiar forms.

The king-must-die resonances in the Kennedy assassination were apparent from the start. I started reading Robert Graves' The White Goddess a few weeks later and immediately found the parallels overwhelming. But Kennedy's death was only the climax of a larger archetypal pattern that extended back several years earlier and centered on his relationships with Jackie and Marilyn. This is something I recognized 20 years ago while reading Ted Hughes' Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being -- and the key insight I derived from that book was that on an archetypal level, Marilyn's death made JFK's inevitable.

Another reference point of interest is to be found in Graham Robb's newly-published The Discovery of Middle Earth: Mapping the Lost World of the Celts. He proposes that between about 800 and 400 BC, the Gauls laid out a highly precise grid of solsticial lines -- based on the position of midsummer and midwinter sunrise and sunset -- that transformed their entire territory into a reflection of the heavens in a literal expression of "as above, so below." These lines determined everything from the location of tribal capitals to migration routes (and presumably major events like human sacrifices) and were the druids' means of assuring that human actions would be in accord with the will of the gods.

Robb suggests in passing that our present-day system of latitude and longitude can be seen as a direct extension of that ancient one -- although less subtle and less attuned to the rhythms of the natural world. From that perspective, it makes sense that even today archetypal events would cluster along significant lines in our own grid, or at the very least that we would perceive them as doing so.

The Masons, of course, are to some extent heirs to an authentic knowledge of sacred geometry, though they never seem to have been able to apply it in as sweeping a manner as the ancient Gauls. I suspect that like the word "devil," in many place-names "Masonic" may simply reflect an intuitive sense that certain spots are powerful focal points for earth energies. This seems particularly likely to be true in Texas, where many of the founders were Masons -- which is why it's known as the Lone Star State.

I also have a feeling that this entire system of archetypes represents an effort to reconcile the dark, chthonic, earth energies with the light, celestial, stellar energies -- and that this fundamentally scientific problem is what underlies the myth of the dying sun-god and his romantic entanglement with a dark-haired woman and a blonde woman.

In [I]Family of Secrets[/I], a book about the legacy of the Bush family, Russ Baker covers 'Poppy' Bush and his place on the periphery of the JFK assassination, he points out that Zapruder, the man who filmed the "Zapruder tape" was a 32nd degree Mason, which I've never seen mentioned anywhere else.

In fact, Baker has a series up at his Who What Why page detailing Bush/CIA connections to the JFK assassination, with excerpts from the Family of Secrets book I mentioned previously. Reading through to see if the info about Zapruder is included since my copy is packed at the moment.

"Zapruder is widely characterized as an innocent bystander, simply an onlooker who happened to capture historic footage that would dominate the evidentiary debate. Innocent he may well have been, but hardly unknown in Dallas intelligence circles.

It turns out that the short, bald recorder of history was also a former colleague of Mrs. de Mohrenschildt, who worked with her at Nardis when she first moved to Dallas. Zapruder also sat on the board of Neil Mallon’s Dallas Council on World Affairs. Like numerous figures in this story, he had a propensity for groups built on loyalty and secrecy, having sustained the status of thirty-second-degree Freemason."

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About Me

Investigator of human and animal mysteries since 1960. Swamp Thing character "Coleman Wadsworth" in #4:7 and more in #4:8, is a tribute.
Author of over 35 books, including The Unidentified (1975), Mysterious America (1983/2007), Suicide Clusters (1987), Cryptozoology A to Z (1999), Bigfoot! (2003), The Copycat Effect (2004), and field guides.
Educated in anthropology-zoology at SIU-Carbondale, and psychiatric social work at Simmons College School of Social Work. Began doctoral work in anthropology (Brandeis University) and family violence (UNH). Taught at NE universities (1980 to 2003), while concurrently a senior researcher at the Muskie School (1983 to 1996), before retiring to write, lecture, consult, & open museum. Popular documentary course was taught for 23 semesters; appeared on C2C, The Larry King Show, MonsterQuest, Lost Tapes, In Search Of, and other tv programs.
Loren Coleman is a dedicated father (Caleb, Malcolm, Des), cryptozoologist, media consultant, and baseball fan.